


Culture Shock

by Kelticmoon



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 15:10:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18166775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kelticmoon/pseuds/Kelticmoon
Summary: It's not easy adjusting to a culture so similar and yet so different from your own, yet that's the situation Eruruu Lavellan finds herself in.  An unexpected surprise might boost her morale.





	Culture Shock

**Author's Note:**

> Eruruu speaks with an accent similar to Merida's from Brave.

It's not easy adjusting to a culture so similar and yet so different from your own, yet that's the situation Eruruu Lavellan finds herself in.  Its not so bad when she's in the Hinterlands sleeping in the Inquisition tents, but now that she's back at Haven; it's the void. In a few days, they're going to travel to Val Royeaux to try and address the clerics as Mother Giselle suggested.

Right now that's the least of her concerns.

Eruruu tosses and turns on the bed in the cabin she’s been given at Haven. She's exhausted, but no matter how hard she tries, she can’t seem get comfortable. The bed is too soft. It had been just fine during the 3 days she was recovering from attempting to seal the breech, but now that she isn’t almost dying; it's the most uncomfortable thing she’s ever slept on.  

Eruruu huffs in frustration as she sits up in bed. She quickly gets up, walks across the room to her pack, grabs her bedroll, and lays it out on the floor beside her bed. Then she grabs the pillow off of the bed and throws it down at the head of it before laying in it. Almost as soon as her head hits the pillow, she finally falls into a blissful sleep.

The following morning when she awakens, she stretches, gets dressed, and braids her long, brown black hair into the complicated braided bun she wears her hair in.  At the very end, she ties her wooden hair ring. Ash she gets ready for the day, she feels a little bad for not using the bed they kindly gave her. She knows its customary for humans, city elves, and dwarves to sleep in such beds, but Eruruu has never slept in one until now. For her entire life, she's slept in a bedroll in a tent. Even having the privacy of a cabin is a new experience for her. Being the second of four, she’s been sharing a tent with her siblings for as long as she can remember.

It's not the only such issue she's having either.

The food they eat at Haven has been an issue as well. For example, the previous night for dinner they had this meat called lamb that had a kind of heavy sauce on it with what tasted like potatoes that were cooked and then crushed. She ate what she could out of politeness, but the food was so rich that she’d nearly gotten sick that night. For breakfast that day they’d had these eggs with these bits of meat called ham and melted cheese in it. That did make her sick.

She isn’t used to such rich, heavy foods. She’s grown up eating lean meats like deer, rabbit, and fish that her clan hunted and wild plants and grains that were foraged or stored. Occasionally they would trade goods for vegetables that humans grew like carrots and potatoes. Vegetables were often boiled and meats was often cooked on a stick or a spit over a fire. Sometimes they were combined into a light soup or stew, but that was usually for holidays and large clan gatherings; not every night.

Eruruu has said nothing of this. 

She doesn't want to be rude and she knows they have limited food.

As she approaches the campfire near Varric’s tent, she almost breathes a sigh of relief when she sees he's having plain porridge for breakfast. Creators, she never thought she'd be so happy to see something that was just grain and water for a change.

“Morning, Lavellan,” Varric says as he sees her approach. “Sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you,” Eruruu answers.

It wasn’t a total lie, she did sleep well after she decided to sleep on the floor.

“Mind if I…?” she asks gesturing to his large pot of porridge in front of him while playing with the wooden ring at the end of her braid.

“Help yourself,” he tells her.

Eruruu sits near him and eagerly helps herself to a bowl. For a while, they eat in comfortable silence until Eruruu had finishes her first bowl and goes back for seconds.

“I hear the agents Nightingale sent to deliver a peace offering to your clan returned with a message and goods yesterday,” Varric remarks.

“They did,” Eruruu confirms. “Sylaise has blessed the clan with more healing herbs than needed, so they gave them to us. Should prove useful at any rate…”

“SOMEONE CATCH THAT THIEF!!”

A shout cuts her off. She looks up just in time to see a blur of white, blue, and brown run by, closely followed by the camp cook and a few people in Inquisition soldier uniforms.

That blur looks awfully familiar…

“What the…” she mutters before setting her bowl down on the bench and sprints after them.

When she catches up to them, a crowd has gathered around the doors to the chantry. Eruruu pushes through to find exactly what she was expecting.

There, cornered by the baker against the doors of the Chantry, stood a little elven girl with the same sun kissed skin, brown eyes, and straight brown black hair as her in a white, blue and brown elven dress with blue accents and boots and her hair in pigtails.

“Aruruu!?” Eruruu exclaims as she runs forward.

The little girl turns at her name.

“Big sister!”

She runs to Eruruu who kneels down and hugs her little sister tight.

Then Eruruu sees a loaf of bread in her sister’s hands and she knows what happened.

“Aruruu, what have I told you about stealing?” Eruruu scolds her.

“Aruruu hungry…” Aruruu protests softly. “Lady said ‘no’ when Aruruu ask nicely.”

Eruruu signs.

“How much for the bread?” she asks the cook as she digs in her pocket.

“That won’t be necessary,” the baker tells her nervously with a thick Orlesian accent. “I have more than enough to spare.”

Eruruu knows that isn’t the case, but the cook is trying to save face from denying food to the hungry sister of the Herald of Andraste.

“What do you say?” Eruruu asks her sister.

“Ma serannas…” Aruruu mutters flatly.

Eruruu can tell it isn’t sincere, but it's good enough for her.

“Move along,” Cassandra says, as she shoos everyone off.

The crowd dissipates, leaving only Cassandra, Cullen, Leliana, and Josephine behind.

“Advisors, Cassandra; allow me to introduce my younger sister, Aruruu,” Eruruu says as Aruruu immediately hides behind Eruruu as she starts eating the loaf of bread.

“You never mentioned you had a sister,” Josephine said, with a smile.

“Two actually; one older and one younger, as well as a younger brother,” Eruruu states.

“Your parents must be worried about her,” Leliana comments.

“They would be if they were not dead,” Eruruu remarks. “Our mum died giving birth to her and our father died six years ago. I have been her guardian ever since. I left her and our brother with my clan while I was at the conclave.”

“If she was with your clan, how did she get here?” Cassandra asks.

“An excellent question,” Eruruu says looking down at her sister while raising an eyebrow.

Aruruu looks up at Eruruu and stopped eating long enough to point at one of the elven scouts that had been sent to the clan.

“Followed…”

“You followed my agents?” Leliana asks looking unsure whether to be impressed or miffed that Aruruu was able to follow her agents. “All the way from the Free Marches? Without them noticing?”

“By yourself?” Eruruu adds.

Aruruu nods.

“It took us weeks to get here from the Free Marches, and we were in Kirkwall,” Cassandra states in confusion. “What did she eat? How did she get on the ship?”

“She probably stole food while they slept and stowed away on the ship,” Leliana guesses. “Am I right?” she asks Aruruu kindly.

Aruruu promptly nods.

“Well, I will not be sending her back to the clan alone,” Eruruu states firmly. “I know Haven is not exactly the safest place for a 10-year-old, but she should be alright I think. She is not used to being separated from me for very long and I doubt she will leave on her own; short of bodily force. My sister is a stubborn one; she is.”

Cullen chuckles.

“I suspect you are correct,” he says. “If she is smart enough and stubborn enough to follow one of our scouts here from the Free Marches, I dare say she will resist all attempts to send her away.”

“Perhaps she can act as a runner,” Josephine suggests. “She’s clearly a fast runner. Shall I send a crow to your clan informing them of her whereabouts?”

“I believe I should do that myself,” Eruruu states. “She’ll also be traveling with me when we travel to Val Royeaux. I will not leave her unsupervised and you three have more important things to do than babysit.”

“Very well, Your Worship,” they say.

With that, Eruruu turns and walks back to the campfire near Varric’s tent with Aruruu in tow.

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t see many Lavellan fanfics expressing the culture shock that Lavellan must be going through while with the Inquisition, not just religiously either. I mean you have a person who spent their entire life eating wild game and sleeping on a bedroll in a tent suddenly sleeping in a bed in a cabin/fortress and eating food far richer than what they’re used to eating. Anyone who’s ever read the first Hunger Games book knows that kind of thing takes some getting used to. 
> 
> I figure Varric would be the first to notice this and be kind enough to know not to mention it.
> 
> I also wanted to write when Eruruu’s sister Aruruu joins her at Haven.
> 
> Scrambled eggs with ham and cheese has always made me sick to my stomach since I was a kid. Never knew why, but I figured Eruruu should have the same reaction to it.


End file.
